The surging sales of non-alcoholic drinks

This ESL lesson plan for upper-intermediate and advanced students deals with the topic of alcohol and the growing trend of people deciding to quit alcohol. Students learn and practise a lot of alcohol-related vocabulary as well as vocabulary to talk about market trends and businesses and talk about their attitudes towards alcohol. It is great to teach in January as it mentions the abstinence challenge Dry January. Related lessons: “How to describe wine”.

Pre-listening and video: Students complete a pre-listening vocabulary matching activity which will prepare them to better understand the video. They discuss a few questions before watching, trying to predict the information they are going to hear and practise the newly-learned vocabulary. Students then watch the video “What is behind the surging sales of non-alcoholic drinks”  and complete 2 comprehension activities: matching a piece of information with the correct speaker and taking notes about different questions. The post listening discussion provides a great opportunity for students to practise the target vocabulary and to express their opinions
Synonyms: students learn a few informal and slang adjectives to describe people who have consumed alcohol (e.g. sober, tipsy, hammered, wasted) and then use them to describe the behaviour of people after they have consumed alcohol.
The lesson plan includes a vocabulary activity about words used to describe successful and unsuccessful businesses (e.g. buoyant, slumping, booming). After completing it, students discuss the different businesses that could be described with the adjectives from the exercise.
Speaking practice: The lesson concludes with an additional speaking exercise which will encourage communication and help students talk about the attitudes towards alcohol in their country.
Homework: 3 research topics are suggested which aim to develop the topic further. The topics, combined with the additional resources provided on theenglishflows.com provide plenty of extra opportunities for contact with topic-related vocabulary in order to reinforce and enrich it.